第5章　霍桑?麥爾維爾

5.1　復習筆記

I. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)（納撒尼爾·霍桑）

1．Life（生平）

Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Some of his ancestors were men of prominence in the Puritan theocracy. One of his ancestors was a colonial magistrate, notorious for his part in the persecution of the Quakers, and another was a judge at the Salem Witchcraft Trial in 1692. Gradually, the family fortune declined. Hawthorn was intensely conscious of the wrongdoing of his ancestors, and this awareness led to his understanding of evil being at the core of human life, so he seemed to be haunted by his sense of sin and evil in his life.

霍桑出生于馬薩諸塞州的薩勒姆鎮，他的一些祖先是17世紀新英格蘭清教神權統治中的顯赫人物。他的一位祖先是殖民地行政官，因參與迫害貴格黨人而臭名昭著。另一位祖先則是1692年薩勒姆審巫案的法官。家族漸漸走向沒落?；羯娏业匾庾R到他祖先的惡性，這也讓他明白了邪惡存在于人生命的核心部分，因此他的一生心中的罪惡感都揮之不去。

2．Ideas（思想）

(1) He was haunted by his sense of sin and evil in life, therefore we see “black vision” in his works—the power of blackness. Evil seems to be man’s birthmark. In almost every book he wrote, Hawthorne discussed sin and evil.

(2) He rejected the Transcendentalists' transparent optimism about the potentialities of human nature.

(3) Whenever there is sin, there is punishment. Sin or evil can be passed from generation to generation. In his opinion, evil educates.

(4) He believed that romance was the predestined form of American narrative. He took a great interest in history and antiquity. To him these furnished the soil on which his mind grew to fruition.

(5) Hawthorne had a negative attitude toward science.

(1) 霍桑一生心中都縈繞著罪惡感，因此我們可以在他的作品中感受到“黑色視覺”——邪惡的力量。他認為罪惡是人生來所帶的標記。幾乎他的每一部作品都涉及到了罪與惡。

(2) 他反對超驗主義者對人性抱著純粹樂觀的態度。

(3) 罪行必遭懲罰，罪或者惡都會代代相傳。他相信罪惡起教化的作用。

(4) 他認為傳奇是美國小說敘事的注定形式。他對歷史和文物古跡有濃郁的興趣。認為這些可以滋養思想的成長。

(5) 霍桑對科學持消極的態度。

3．Writing style（寫作風格）

(1) He is the most ambivalent writer, a consummate romantic in the American literature history. One salient feature of Hawthorne’s art is his ambiguity, of which the technique of multiple views employed in the last part of his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter offers a good illustration.

(2) He is good at exploring of the complexity of human psychology. He is anatomist of "the interior of the heart". His works are full of mental activities.

(3) Allegory is used to hold fast against the crushing blows of reality, the symbolism serves as a weapon to attack and penetrate it. Hawthorne is a master of symbolism, which he took from the Puritan tradition and bequeathed to American literature in a revivified form. The symbol can be found everywhere in his writing, and his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, provides the most conclusive proof.

(1) 霍桑是美國文學歷史上思想最為矛盾、寫作手法嫻熟的浪漫主義作家。矛盾性是霍桑寫作藝術的一個顯著特征，在他的代表作《紅字》的最后一部分作家運用了多重視角的寫作技巧。

(2) 他善于探究人的復雜心理，是人物內心的剖析師。他的作品有著豐富的心理活動描寫。

(3) 寓言是對現實沉重的打擊，象征主義則是揭露和抨擊的武器?；羯Ｊ窍笳髦髁x大師，他繼承了清教的傳統并光復了美國文學。象征在他的作品中隨處可見，尤其在他的代表作《紅字》中找到確證。

4．Influence（影響）

Hawthorne’s influence has been great. He was accorded due recognition by his contemporary James Russell Lowell in the latter’s A Fable for Critics. He changed Herman Melville’s original scheme for his Moby Dick. William Dean Howells learned to use Hawthorne’s fiction as the benchmark for their novel-writing practice. In this century William Faulkner and some Gothic novelists clearly show their indebtedness to him.

霍桑的影響可謂深遠。詹姆斯·拉塞爾·洛威爾在《寫給批評家的寓言》的末了給予他以應有的認可。他改變了赫爾曼·麥爾維爾《白鯨》中最初的創作意圖。威廉·迪安·豪威爾斯學著用霍桑的作品作為他們小說創作的基準。在這個世紀威廉姆·?？思{和一些哥特式小說家對他也懷感恩之情。

5．Major works（主要作品）

The Scarlet Letter《紅字》

Twice-told Tales《重講一遍的故事》

Mosses from an Old Manse《古屋青苔》

The House of the Seven Gables《帶有七個尖角閣的房子》

The Blithdale Romance《玉石雕像》

The Marble Faun《福谷傳奇》

“Young Goodman Brown”《年輕的小伙子布朗》

“The Minister’s Black Veil”《牧師的黑面紗》

“Rappacini’s Daughter”《拉普奇尼博士的女兒》

6．Analysis of his major works（主要作品分析）

◆The Scarlet Letter《紅字》

(1) Theme—This novel assumes the universality of guilt and explores the complexities and ambiguities of man's choices. Hawthorne does not intend to tell a love story nor a story of sin, but focuses his attention on the moral, emotional, and psychological effects or consequences of the sin on the people in general and those main characters in particular, so as to show us the tension between society and individuals. To Hawthorne, everybody is potentially a sinner, and great moral courage is therefore indispensable for the improvement of human nature.

(2) Symbolism—Hawthorne portrays Hester as an aristocratic and sensitive young woman who meets her sentence with dignity and courage. When she is set free, she does not flee the community. She supports herself and her child by doing fancy needlework, devotes her life to her child and helping the sick and the poor, and wins the admiration and love of her fellowmen again. So, The Scarlet Letter is a hymn on the moral growth of the woman. The scarlet letter at first is a token of shame, Adultery, then the genuine sympathy and help she offers to her fellow villagers change it to Able. Later in the end, A appears in the sky, signifying Angel. Her life eventually acquires a real significance when she establishes a meaningful relationship with her fellowmen.

(1) 主題——這部小說展現了罪惡的普遍性并探究了人們面臨選擇時的復雜與矛盾心理?；羯o意去講述一個關于愛情或罪惡的故事，而是關注于罪惡感帶給普通人或一些主要角色在道德、情感、心理方面的影響，從而展示了社會與個人之間的緊張狀況。對于霍桑來講，每個人都是潛在的罪人，道義上的勇氣對人性的改善是必不可少的。

(2) 象征主義——霍桑將海斯特描繪成一位儀態高貴并善感的年輕女子，從容勇敢地面對判決。當她獲釋后，她并沒有逃離社區。她帶著孩子靠做精美的針線活自力更生，將愛奉獻給自己的孩子并幫助老弱病殘，重新贏得了同鄉人的贊美和愛戴。因此，《紅字》就是一曲歌頌海斯特道德成長的贊歌。紅字最初是羞恥的象征，是“通奸”；然后因為她對同鄉人真誠的同情和幫助使得紅字的意義變為“能干”；最后，紅字A出現在天空中，意味著“天使”。當她和她的同鄉建立了深長的關系時，她的生命最終獲得了真正的意義。

II. Herman Melville (1819-1891)（赫爾曼·麥爾維爾）

1．Life（生平）

Melville is a famous novelist and poet in American literature. He had little education and began to work after stopped schooling. There are three things which deserve mention about his life: going out to sea, his marriage and his friendship with Hawthorne. His experiences and adventures on the sea furnished him with abundant material for fiction. Melville had to do hackwork for the money he needed to keep his wife in her extravagant style. Melville saw in Hawthorne the one American who was expressively aware of the evil at the core of American life. He found Hawthorne’s understanding of evil, that blackness of vision, unusually fascinating. A significant change came about in the original design of his masterpiece Moby Dick when the two men met, and the novel was rewritten into the world classic that we read today.

麥爾維爾是美國著名的小說家和詩人。他接受的教育有限，輟學之后即開始工作。影響他一生的事件有三：出海，他的婚姻及其與霍桑的友誼。他在海上的經歷和冒險為他的小說創作提供了豐富的素材。在婚姻生活上，麥爾維爾不得不創作劣質作品以滿足妻子的奢華生活。麥爾維爾意識到霍桑已洞察到美國社會生活中存在著的惡。他覺得霍桑所理解的惡和視角的黑暗不同尋常。當兩個人相會后，麥爾維爾的代表作《白鯨》的創作意圖發生了重大改變。改寫后的作品成為當今世界的文學經典。

2．Major works（主要作品）

Redburn《萊德伯恩》

Typee《泰比》

Omoo《奧姆》

Moby Dick《白鯨》

Mardi《瑪地》

White Jacket《白外套》

Pierre《皮埃爾》

Billy Budd《比利巴德》

The Confidence Man《騙子》

Clarel《克拉勒爾》

3．Analysis of major work（主要作品分析）

◆Moby Dick《白鯨》

(1) Moby Dick represents the sum total of Melville’s bleak view of the world in which he lived. It is at once godless and purposeless. The loss of faith and the sense of futility and meaningless which characterize modern life of the West were expressed in Melville’s work so well that the twentieth century has found it both fascinating and great.

(2) One of the major themes of this novel is alienation, which exists in the life of Melville on different levels, between man and man, man and society, and man and nature. Melville also criticizes New England Transcendentalism of its emphasis on individualism and Oversoul. Another theme of this novel is “rejection and quest”.

(3) The novel is highly symbolic. The voyage itself is a metaphor for “search and discovery, the search for the ultimate truth of experience.” Moby Dick is the most conspicuous symbol in the book and it is capable of many interpretations. It is a symbol of evil to some, one of goodness to others, and both to still others. Its whiteness is a paradoxical color, signifying as it does death and corruption as well as purity, innocence, and youth. It represents the final mystery of the universe which man will do well to desist from pursuing.

(4) Melville manages to achieve the effect of ambiguity through employing the technique of multiple view of his narratives. He tends to write periodic sentences. His rich rhythmical prose and his poetic power have been profusely commented upon and praised.

(1) 《白鯨》代表了麥爾維爾對他所生活的時代悲涼的世界觀。這里沒有上帝也毫無意義可言。西方現代生活中信仰的丟失、無用感及無意義等淋漓盡致地表現在梅爾維爾的這部作品中，因此20世紀人們發現它偉大且引人入勝。

(2) 該小說的主題是疏離。疏離存在于麥爾維爾生活時代的不同層面，如人與人之間，人與社會之間，以及人與自然之間。麥爾維爾同時對新英格蘭超驗主義過度強調個人主義和超靈進行了批判。該小說的另外一個主題是拒絕與追尋。

(3) 該小說富有象征意義。航行本身是探索和發現，尋求最終真相的隱喻。莫比·迪克是全書中最明顯的象征，它可以有多種解釋。有人認為它代表邪惡，有人認為它代表了善良，也有人認為它二者兼有。它的白色是自相矛盾的顏色，既代表了死亡和腐朽，又代表了純潔、天真和青春。它代表論文宇宙的最終奧秘，人最好別去求甚解。

(4) 麥爾維爾通過運用多重視角的技巧以實現模棱兩可的效果。他傾向于寫掉尾句。他富有韻律的散文和詩意被大眾評論和贊美。